


Six Things About Will Riker’s Mind

by juniperpines



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Next Generation (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juniperpines/pseuds/juniperpines





	Six Things About Will Riker’s Mind

1\. He leaves Betazed all at once, and in pieces.

At Starfleet Academy, the history of Earth’s ancient wars was required study. The massive geopolitical conflicts that tore apart and rearranged reality for most of Earth’s inhabitants have their analogy to the tensions and fractures between the Federation’s worlds. What Will found most fascinating, though, were the primitive technologies -- the rifles, the tanks, the airplanes, the aircraft carriers.

“After V-E-Day, it took some American soldiers months upon months to travel home from old Europe by ship,” intoned the lecturer. “In later conflicts troop transport was increasingly accomplished by airplane, but the loss of transition time between the frontline and the homefront caused psychological problems for many soldiers.”

When he leaves Betazed, the transporter beams him from shore to ship in an instant. There is no hint of the steamy jungle planet in the steel and titanium bulk of the ship, but the echoes are harder to shake. It is weeks before he walks down the corridors and nods at the passing crewmen without reaching for the telepathic shielding Deanna had taught him. There are no mind readers here.

When their shore leave together falls through, and he is sent on a new mission, the aching disappointment is colored with something that he can hardly admit, to himself, feels a lot like relief.

Weeks later he realizes he has woken in the morning without turning his mind to the emptiness where hers used to be.

He never orders Betazoid food from the replicator, despite falling in love with the cuisine during his two years stationed on the planet. A few small momentos -- a holopic, a book of poetry she pressed into his hand the night they said good-bye -- are in a small hard-sided case in his closet, untouched and only sometimes thought of. Her communiques, text only now, fall off. He is too busy to do more than regret it.

Still, it is another month before a newly transferred lieutenant sits next to him in the ship’s canteen after hours, after a belligerent encounter with the Ferengi that has left everyone ready to blow off some steam. “You’re a mystery, Bill Riker. No one can figure you out.” She smells good. Her hair is blond and regulation, no chaotic dark curls.

“What’s to figure out? I’m not that complicated.”

She plucks at his sleeve, ducks her head closer to his in the noisy, crowded room. “Is there someone?”

“No,” he says, all too aware of the world vanishing behind him on the other side of the ocean, that this is another act of leaving it behind. “There’s nobody.”

 

2\. “I don’t know why we play with an empath,” Geordi complains as Deanna scoops the pile of chips in her direction.

“Says the man who can see through cards,” Beverly reminds him.

“Yeah, but I don’t do that at the poker game.”

“And I don’t rummage around in your minds during my off hours, either,” Deanna says pointedly as she stacks the chips. Will bites back a smile; he loves her temper when it makes its rare appearances.

Data shuffles the cards in a blur. “Scarlet ladies are wild.”

“If you want to look at anyone, how about the dealer?” she asks as they all ante up. “Don’t you think that Data could count cards if he wanted to?”

“I assure you, Counselor,” Data says carefully, “I do have a subroutine that ensures fair play when it comes to games of chance. I cannot, however, say that my skills do not at times give me an advantage over humans and other humanoids… But is that really a question of fairness?”

Geordi and Beverly fold, and Riker knocks Data out of the game. He leans toward Deanna, who is cool as a Vulcan winter. He leans in with his mind, too, but feels gentle laughter at his rusty attempt. “I’m all in, so show me your hand.”

She smiles beatifically as she turns over a royal flush.

Cleaned out, Will groans dramatically and slumps back in his seat. “See?” says Geordi. “Just what do you call that?”

“I call it ‘serendipity,’ gentlemen,” Deanna says.

 

3\. Will prides himself on knowing his own head. If his time on Betazed taught him anything, it was the self-knowledge that his psyche was pretty simple. For a human this was nothing to be ashamed of; it beat the tortured alternative.

The duality of Odan’s presence is therefore a galactic shift. There was a time when Deanna shared his thoughts to some extent, but that was different; that was love. This is like hotbunking on a battleship, too crowded by half. He’s too old for a roommate.

Odan loves Beverly, wants Beverly, his friend Beverly. He takes her. Will is there and he’s not; it’s not his experience but he can’t not be there. He likes sex and can’t say he doesn’t enjoy it on that level, but overall he finds the experience dissociative.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” Deanna says in her office later. He doesn’t think she’s uncomfortable, knowing that she encouraged Beverly to do what she felt was right. She doesn’t want to make this any stranger for him.

“I want to,” he says.

 

4\. He is just starting to make inroads with the gorgeous, cool blonde civilian from Earth who has been consulting with stellar cartography on this mission. It’s the kind of conquest that suits him these days, here and then gone after a good time. He leaves their table to get another round of drinks from the bar, crowded with officers and visitors in the middle of the diplomatic reception for the Ktarian system’s highest level envoys.

Deanna intercepts him and grabs his arm. “Will, I need you to stay with me,” she says in a low voice, leaning her head against his shoulder.

If it were anyone else, he’d think she was trying to salt his game, but that’s not Deanna. He lays his hand on hers, concerned. “What is it?”

“The Ktarians, they’re unlike any species I’ve ever sensed before. There’s something intense about them, sharp, and it amplifies when they’re in a group.” Deanna winces, like she is in physical pain.

“Let me get you out of here,” he says instinctively.

“No, I can’t leave. They’re plotting something. But I can’t figure it out, all of the factions.” Before him, Will realizes that there is an almost-Shakespearean style drama playing out clandestinely, hidden from those who lack her empathic powers.

He turns to the wall, stroking her back, and touches his communicator. “Commander Riker to Lieutenant Worf. I need a security team to ten-forward immediately -- to wait outside in the corridor, for my orders.”

“Security team is on its way, sir.”

“Riker out.” His drinks come. He glances across the room, but hands one to Deanna as casually as possible. “What now?”

“Can you stay with me? There’s something about your mind that is very… grounding for me right now.”

Will makes every effort to open himself to her, although he is well out of practice, even as his eyes travel from small group to small group, where the Captain and the others are socializing. “Shall we go for a walk?” He’s always been proud to have her on his arm, no matter the circumstance.

She breathes deeper, and half-smiles, and he can _feel_ her resolve. “Let’s.”

 

5\. He doesn’t want to listen. It’s not really listening anyway, but destructive curiosity fills him and opens him to impressions of them. In his own bed, a hundred meters away, it’s like hearing it through a wall at the Academy, and every bit as awkward.

It’s not supposed to work like this. The farther apart they are, the weaker his sense of her should be. That’s how it was explained to him when they fell in love, and how it had always seemed to work. Right now they are only good friends, having repurposed the language and warmth of their romance for a more lived-in, utilitarian relationship. But the sensations he’s getting are stronger than in years.

It’s him, of course, the other Riker. She let him make love to her; they are the same person, or were. It’s too much to untangle so soon.

All of the history the other him was drawing on belonged to Will, too. He and Deanna weren’t possessive of each other, but somehow this doesn’t seem fair game. He could share every other piece of her, but he’s not ready to allow that their past might belong to someone else, too.

He can feel the open door for the other Will, and he hopes that when he leaves, she won’t shut it on both of them.

He turns over, hits the pillow, closes his eyes, tries to sleep with the thought that the other him will leave. She has to know that.

 

6\. Waiting too long is almost his fatal flaw. He does it again, when in the staff briefing Picard lets slip the news that Starfleet has pulled out the big chair for him once more, the Titan this time, before Will makes up his mind to tell her.

Deanna may be the most understanding woman in the universe, but it does hurt her. He feels that. Probably more so because she understands that he wants to take the offer, or he would have told her already.

They’ve been together for several years since the Briar Patch, and he finds himself in the same place about their relationship as their friendship those many years before. They still keep separate quarters, even though no one is fooled. It’s so good the way it is, he hasn’t wanted to lose any bit of it to questions about the future.

After his shift, she doesn’t show up for dinner. He finds her in the holodeck and walks the narrow path through the thick jungle down to the white-sand beach.

Betazed. It always comes back to Betazed. “Feeling sentimental?”

She runs her fingers through the sand, cool by sunset. “Do you remember this place?”

“As if I could forget where we said good-bye.” He sits next to her. “Is that what you’re thinking? Good-bye?”

“What should I be thinking, Will?”

Her black eyes are soft and sad, and he simply has to kiss her. _You should marry me. Come with me, Imzadi._

Her answer comes almost before he realizes he’s asked the question, less a word than a euphoric feeling that almost lifts him off his feet when it becomes his, too. “Are you sure?” she asks.

“Can’t you tell?” He moves her hand until it rests over his heart.

Her smile inside him is everything, every world they've ever visited. _I love it when you make up your mind._


End file.
